Deepblue4you/Getty Images As parents scramble to protect their children from the adverse effects of a free and open internet, lawmakers are increasingly restricting access to untoward content via age verification laws. Enforcement, however, has proven difficult, with constituents often flocking to tools like virtual private networks to circumvent restrictions . As a response, lawmakers have advocated restricting access to VPNs, which camouflage a user's location by spoofing their IP address. While VPN restrictions have been deployed in totalitarian countries like North Korea, Belarus, China and Russia, age limits that necessitate them to enforce are increasingly popular in liberal nations like the U.K. and Australia. Some American states, like Wisconsin and Michigan, have attempted to codify VPN bans . On May 6, 2026, Utah became the first state to officially effectively combat users' access to the privacy tool.…